If parents “help” kids with homework, the teacher will get a misleading view of what the kid has learned and is capable of. Other kids, lacking this “help”, will get worse grades.
If you want to argue that the teacher understands that parents are helping their kids with the homework, then:
1. Why aren’t teachers sending study aids, pedagogical material, etc. to the parents, on order to aid in the further education of the kids? Why are teachers universally acting as though kids are supposed to do the homework on their own?
2. This would still only help kids with rich parent who can afford the time to be a part-time teacher to their kids.
In summary: If teachers assume that kids do all their homework themselves, unassisted, then “helping” is (culturally normalized) cheating. If teachers instead assume that kids get help from their parents, it would be burdening kids with poor and/or busy parents with a severe disadvantage.
You're dying on a very strange hill. Yes, children that have active and engaged parents have an advantage over those who do not. "Cheating" implies that the parents are doing the homework for the child without the child's involvement. Of course, that's not what is happening, and I'm sure you know that.
I'm sure you also know that not all school districts, teachers, and children are equal. Some are funded better than others, some are better trained than others, and some learn in different ways than others. If my child is struggling for one reason or another, I am going to be engaged in several ways. First, I may speak to the school and/or the teacher to understand the details. Second, I may speak to my child about their assignments and offer to explain unclear concepts to them. I won't take a pencil and start solving the problems for them.
> children that have active and engaged parents have an advantage over those who do not.
You’re not answering my questions, or responding to my summary. Either teachers are aware of this – in which case teachers should logically help the parents, not arbitrarily assigning homework to kids – or teachers are unaware, in which case parents helping kids is skewing teachers’ perceptions of the kids’ abilities – i.e. cheating. I made the charitable assumption that teachers are acting reasonably based on what they know.
> I won't take a pencil and start solving the problems for them.
But this is what the stereotypical, commonly depicted, behavior is. It may not be universal, but I am sure it is not uncommon.
If you want to argue that the teacher understands that parents are helping their kids with the homework, then:
1. Why aren’t teachers sending study aids, pedagogical material, etc. to the parents, on order to aid in the further education of the kids? Why are teachers universally acting as though kids are supposed to do the homework on their own?
2. This would still only help kids with rich parent who can afford the time to be a part-time teacher to their kids.
In summary: If teachers assume that kids do all their homework themselves, unassisted, then “helping” is (culturally normalized) cheating. If teachers instead assume that kids get help from their parents, it would be burdening kids with poor and/or busy parents with a severe disadvantage.